Huckleberry, a parenting app that takes the guesswork out of sleep, was created from my own experience of struggling to get my son to sleep through the night. And I am not alone. Seventy-six per cent of parents claim that they would like to improve an aspect of their child’s sleep.
I had my first child while working at a software startup and even after reading all the books I could get my hands on and consulting with friends and family, my son still woke up every 2–3 hours for the first 20 months. Being a triple-major in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Mathematics, and Statistics at the University of California, Berkeley, I decided that there must be a way to “data science my way into a solution.” Hence, Huckleberry was born. Our goal is to help make good sleep possible for every family, without having to invest in expensive sleep consultants. The Huckleberry app blends together the best in data science, paediatric sleep experts and AI to provide easy-to-follow sleep guides for each family’s unique lifestyle. In addition to helping families manage sleep, our newest feature lets parents look at their children’s eating habits to introduce solid foods and keep record of reactions, allergies, and sensitivities.
Our company and app have always, and will always, be driven by data. That’s why as part of the Harvard Center on the Developing Child Scaling Impact Portfolio, we explored how an app-based sleep intervention can impact sleep and mental health. The results showed that 93% of participants who implemented at least a portion of our sleep methods reported an improvement in their child’s sleep.
Notably, Huckleberry has introduced the world’s first real-time predictive algorithm based upon a child’s sleep patterns to identify the next optimal sleep time for your child. Parents rave about how SweetSpot helps moves their child from catnaps to 90-minute naps while improving night sleep, calling it “black magic”!
And while technology allows us to achieve incredible gains, there can also be negative effects. For example, it’s important that technology supports parents and fosters their confidence, rather than undermining them or making them overly dependent on it. For that reason, we are very mindful to not include certain features that are common on other apps. For example, we don’t show a parent’s “winning streak” on the app, because we believe someone should take a break from it if they want to. We also don’t show a “score” for your child, because that just feels degrading for anything below what one might perceive as a high score.
Huckleberry
Comfort – Find comfort in knowing that you are doing the best you can in this moment and you are doing a great job.
Control – As new parents, you are trying to create a sense of control in a new environment that may be unlike anything you’ve experienced before. Use the tools that are accessible to you and learn to be ok if things are not perfect.
Confidence – Follow your intuition and know that you are doing the right thing!
Huckleberry wants to recognize parents for all the amazing things they do for their children. It’s no small feat, and it should be celebrated. We also love that we’re able to leverage the power of data science, AI and paediatric experts to help parents all across the world make informed decisions that lead to happy and thriving families. That is the genesis of Huckleberry.
